Monday, April 14, 2008

Crittin' Time

Man, the legs are tired today. Saturday was the King's Valley, and, finding myself both fatigued from a longish work week and a bit sore in the legs from lots of evening miles, I skipped it. Instead, I went on the CSC ride to Cottage Grove with Dan V, Jason R, and the True Lover. The Lover was absolutely gettin' it on the climbs, and I was too stubborn to sit and spin until the final climb up Dillard back into town, where I realized that 400W up the damn hill just to sit on the wheel was simply not going to be an option. So the legs were feeling thrashed when I got home. And only then did I realize that I had achieved a nice rosy tint to all my exposed appendages - first sunburn of the year. And it's a good one.

Sunday started off pretty bad as I took an hour or so trying to loosen up and failing completely to improve the feelings. Rubicon had like a half dozen guys in there, with nice shiny bikes and matching legs, and a host of other strongmen were looking the part at the line as well. The race was looking pretty bad. So, I turned to Nick and said "My legs feel like crap. I think I'm going to attack a lot". And he replied "How is that different from how you usually race this course?". Hah. The difference is, when I feel bad I attack so that I can get in a steady break and not have to match a lot of accelerations. When I feel good, or really, really bad, I sit in more and think about the finish. Unless I get bored, in which case I attack.

As it turned out, attacks were more or less pointless for the first half of the 45 laps. I sat on a lot and went with a few promising moves but decided early that I wasn't going to be the one trying to get something off the front, but rather should wait for a serious Rubicon move. And my legs were toasted and well on their way to burnt. A chunk of the field had to have been feeling pretty sore was well, as a split happened around the middle of the race, and the next time I saw any of them it was in the finale as we lapped the 3 remaining riders from the back of the split. Weird.

Somewhere around 15 to go, maybe a little more, a Rubicon went off the front for a prime lap, and coming down the home straight as he took it I took off to bridge and found myself alone. I caught up to him in about 2 laps as Mark and Paulie bridged behind me, and the four of us opened up a gap. Another Rubicon and Zach bridged up a little while later, and we caught the 3 lapped riders, so now Hutch's had 2 with a man one lap down, Rubicon and 3 with a man one lap down, and the rest of the break was flying solo. With 2 to go Marc and Paulie were off by a little way and everyone else looking at each other, so I took off and got right up to them when I got caught by the other 6, and now we were looking at the last lap and that was all she wrote for me. That was the last bullet in the chamber. I got 6th.

I'll call that a minor success for the weekend. I got in the right move and had OK power despite having horrible feelings in the legs.

Needless to say, the only riding I am doing today is a very short, very slow commute. Very slow.